Mr Mounce had worked at a car dealership in Hull before travelling abroad to work for a communications company.

A number of foreigners were believed to have been staying at the hotel, in the city's Karrada district.

Outrage

Mr Straw said he was saddened whenever he heard information about terrorist outrages.

"The terrorists may pick particular targets and they may use a particular target as an excuse, but the target of the terrorist is the whole of the civilised world and people of every religion," he said.

"In Iraq, as we saw yesterday, most of the victims of this terrorism allegedly directed against the coalition are Iraqi citizens trying to go about their ordinary lives."

We have five dead, including a British national, and 25 wounded, including a Jordanian and a Lebanese

Aziz Madhkur Ibn Nafis hospital

"That's why we have a common purpose to fight this terrorism with the Iraqi people, with the Afghan people, with peoples wherever they are affected," he added.

Mr Mounce was working for an Italian communications company and his next of kin have been contacted in the US.

The other Briton suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries and he has been named as 31-year-old Giles Ash.

Mr Ash, who is married, was working for the same Italian company as Mr Mounce.

The Foreign Office could not confirm where Mr Ash was originally from or when he was last based in the UK.

Three-metre crater

Deputy director of the Ibn Nafis hospital, Aziz Madhkur said: "We have five dead, including a British national, and 25 wounded, including a Jordanian and a Lebanese."

"Seven of the wounded are in serious condition and 18 others were lightly wounded," he added.

The explosion left a crater almost three metres (10 ft) wide and three metres deep.

Three buildings near the hotel were also said to have been damaged.

The White House said the attack would not deter
the coalition's plans to rebuild Iraq on its first anniversary of the US-led war that ousted former leader Saddam Hussein.